Erect perennial herb or woody shrub, to 3.5 m tall. Stem densely stellate-hairy when young becoming glabrous and greyish with white lenticels. Leaves: lamina 1-10.5 ×0.5-5 cm, ovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate, stellate-hairy to ± glabrous above, more densely hairy beneath, 3-5-veined from the base. Stipules 1-4 mm, filiform. Male flowers borne in a head on a 1-10 cm peduncle; female flowers arranged in a whorl of 1-4 at its base. Male flowers: calyx lobes 4, ovate; stamen filaments orange-yellow. Female flowers: sepals 6, 4 × 2 mm, expanding to 2.5 × 1 cm in fruit, 2-pinnatipartite. Fruit 3-lobed, pubescent.